


Stanfords

by josephina_x



Series: Dimension 46’\>>A [4]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Feral Ford, Gen, One Year Later, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15425370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: A little bit of Bill’s history, and some things that maybe Stanley never wanted to know.





	Stanfords

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: Stanfords  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3)  
> Summary: A little bit of Bill’s history, and some things that maybe Stanley never wanted to know.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: Feral Ford AU! ...But mostly stuff with the characters from the _other_ AU, boo hiss. ;)

\---

...blue…

“Kid.”

...blue…

“Kid.”

“Nn,” Bill breathed out, because he was… something… in the…

“Kid.”

...blue and warm and there was something in the...

“ _Kid_.”

Bill woke up.

It wasn’t clean, and it wasn’t abrupt, but he woke up.

And once his human-ish brain had finally finished coming back online, and whatever haphazard and wavering connections his mind and mentality had to his physicality had resolidified and tightened back into place again --

(...at least, that was what Bill assumed must be happening; he really needed to _get on that_ , to figure things out...)

\-- he rubbed a fist against his eyes to clear them of human-ish sleep-grit and blinked them open again to see...

Stanford’s face was mere inches away from his own.

“ _WAAAAH!!_ ”

So _of course_ he yelled and shoved himself up and away to fall backwards in trying to get out of reach of him as fast as he possibly could -- _could you blame him?!?!_

And he slammed back into _something_ that he _almost_ lashed out and fought against -- except it didn’t grab him, just held and supported and braced him.

“Kid, breathe,” he heard behind him, and that was Stanley near-and-nearby at his back -- that was fine -- what _wasn’t_ fine was--

“STANFORD!!” Bill yelled back at Stanley in response -- because how had he _not noticed?!?_ And Bill wasted no time in reaching for his magic, eyes-wide, lips lifting up into a snarl as he raised his hands and--

“--Other-Ford, _**truce**_ , other-dimension, portal,” Stanley listed off in easy but quick reverse-chronological succession, hands at Bill’s forearms, and that forcibly pushed Bill to mentally shunt things into the correct ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’ boxes. Bill physically dropped his hands to his lap, letting go of the magic he’d drawn up -- because the cobwebs in his stupid human-ish brain were clearing, and now he remembered _truce--annoying-Sixer-- **Sixer???** \--wrong-dimension-- **more-than-one-Bill**_ \--

Bill slapped his hands up against the sides of his human-ish head and felt his body bend forward and over as he yelled out, down at the ground, “aaaAAAAAAAAAAA--”

“C’mon now, kid; none of that,” he heard Stanley tell him in even tones, and he felt Stanley’s hands on his wrists, to tug his hands down and away from his head, to then reach around him and pull him close-in.

“--AAAAAHHwait. that. --RRR!” Bill struggled against it, arms and legs flailing. “ _You--!_ ” But he really really couldn’t. “That’s...” Because when Stanley wrapped his arms around him…

“...that’s _cheating_ ,” Bill whined out, and he just--

gave.

_up._

Bill let his head fall back against Stanley’s shoulder. He let his limbs go slack, let his body relax around his mentality and pull him down, because it wasn’t like he could do anything about it anyway. Because Stanley was _warm-warm-warm_ , and that was _cheating_ , doing that.

Bill had been defeated by Stanley Pines a little less than a year ago. And now… it was beginning to occur to Bill that maybe he’d never actually _stopped_ being defeated by the man.

And _that_ wasn’t very fair, either.

The worst part was, he wasn’t even sure that he _cared_ all that much about it, anymore.

Not when he got to be _WARM_ when he just… let certain things slide from time to time.

“Y’know,” he heard Stanley say, as his human-ish eyelids began to droop, along with the rest of him, “You could’ve just told me that you like being warm.”

“ _I didn’t knowwwwww_ ,” Bill complained out at him, while all his muscles tried to melt to jelly on him, and this was oh-so- _unfair_ , why did Stanley get to be so _warm_ all the time, all on his own.

“Huh,” he heard Stanley say. “Chalk one up for Mabel, then.”

Bill let out an angry grumble as he haphazardly shifted his body and limbs around into a more comfortable -- WARMER -- position in Stanley’s arms. Because, no, he wasn’t giving her any credit for _anything_ \-- she didn’t deserve it, after what she’d done and not-done, and _he_ was the one who’d figured it out, anyway -- not her!

“...Or not?” Stanley said just as easily, and patted him on the head.

“Your continued obsession with my hair is annoying and I hate it,” Bill informed him with his eyes closed.

He felt and heard Stanley let out a huff of laughter and, well, that was just uncalled for, wasn’t it? Here he was, trying to point out Stanley’s flaws to him so he could fix them, and he got huffed at? _\--Rude._

Bill rubbed his left temple against Stanley’s shirt -- and grimaced slightly as he felt not just smooth fabric, but also stitching and buttons, because it was a bit non-weirdly jarring, so he stopped -- and settled.

And that was fine, right up until it occurred to him to ask…

“Stanley.” Bill slitted open his eyes, to direct a dead stare out across Stanley’s chest and past his shoulder. “Why did you wake me up.”

“Kid, you were sleeping on _Ford_. --Well. _Other_ -Ford,” Stanley amended, as if that distinction made it any better!

“Ugh,” Bill said in reply, because the calling out of that fact _did_ deserve such a response. But as he closed his eyes and tried to take stock of his body’s state (just, _why?!_ ), he realized something else.

Bill opened his eyes again.

“... _Stanley_ ,” he said dangerously. “ **How long** was I asleep.”

“Eh,” said Stanley. “Maybe an hour.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed. “ _Stanleeeeeeeeeeeeey,_ ” he complained, knocking his head against Stanley's chest, because did Stanley not _realize_ how **dangerous** that had been?! “ _Why_ didn’t you wake me up!”

“Kid, you should’ve let me know if you were that tired. You shouldn’t have let yourself fall asleep out here like that,” he was told. “You know better,” and that had Bill going still. “...Or maybe you don’t?” Stanley continued on, after a thinking pause. And it was just insult to injury when the next thing Stanley said was, “Uh _huh_. So, we trust me not to let anybody else kill you and eat you in your sleep, now, do we?” sounding almost amused as he said it. “That’s a change.”

Yeah, Bill wasn’t touching that one. Admitting that might be the case would leave him wide open to Stanley maybe taking advantage of that at some point, thus invalidating the advantage. It was much better to keep Stanley on his toes, guessing -- it wasn’t like Bill couldn’t just check how Stanley responded when he thought Bill was at his nonexistent mercy, by only _pretending_ to fall asleep sometimes. ...Probably. --Because hey, pretending to fall asleep without _actually_ falling asleep was a thing that human bodies could do, right? He could totally figure out how to do that! Besides: “It’s not like it was actually safe for me to fall asleep in your room in the Shack in the first place!” Bill grumbled out at him, shoulders hunching on him.

“ _Our_ room,” Stanley corrected him.

“Fine, ‘our’ room, whatever. --The point still stands!” Bill objected.

“Yeah, sorry kid,” Stanley told him. “Didn’t think Ford would go that far.”

“Since when does a _Stanford_ respect anyone else’s _boundaries_ ,” Bill snarled out, and at that he felt Stanley let out a sigh.

Bill heard a quiet rustle of cloth on cloth emanate from a movement a few feet away from his side, and he felt the distinct urge to _claw_ and _hit_ , because…

“Stanley.” Bill said flatly, refusing to look in the Stanford’s direction, as he fought that violent urge because of a _stupid truce_ , while his fingers slowly curled into fists.

“Hey,” Stanley said, and Bill knew from the directionality of the sound that it wasn’t being spoken down at him. “You mind giving me a minute alone with the kid?”

“Ah, yes. O-of course,” he heard the Stanford (...Sixer?? -- _no_ ) say, and he heard movement and nearly inaudible footfalls away across the grassy ground.

Bill watched the Stanford retreat to the porch, and Bill directed a dark glower and glare at him all the way.

“What did he do,” Bill said under his breath to Stanley, still watching the Stanford as he sat down on the porch, putting his back to him. _Typical._

“Once you fell asleep? Curled up around you and fell asleep himself, at least for a little while. I came back over again before he woke up Don’t think he saw me at first, though -- not ‘til I tried waking you,” Bill was told, and Bill pushed himself away from Stanley’s warmth slightly, to crane his head back to look up at him, because--

“--What??”

“You heard me,” Stanley told him. “He let you sleep on him. Didn’t mess with you at all, once you were asleep and he got himself all curled-in close.”

Bill stared up at him in disbelief. But…

But. Lying to him about anything when it was just-them would go against what Stanley’d said about… And Stanley had no reason to lie to him about this, did he?

“--But he’s a _Stanford_ ,” Bill heard himself say, because what else _could_ he say? It didn’t make sense. Because there was really no such thing as a ‘Sixer’, after all, he now knew. Because he’d been tricked. Because Stanfords didn’t…

\--And he really should’ve known that sooner, with how inconsistent Stanley’s sibling had been, right from the start. ‘Sixer’s didn’t exist.

“Kid, I’m sorry,” Stanley told him, as Bill frowned up at him. “Maybe I should’ve told you earlier, but I thought I’d have more time, and that it’d be better to let you figure it out on your own. But I’m tellin’ you now.” And Bill stared up at him in complete noncomprehension as Stanley then said, “My brother lied to you, but not about the thing you think.”

“What does that even _mean_ ,” Bill said slowly, frowning up at Stanley. “Are you… telling me… he lied about… _lying?_ ” Bill asked him, and his face drew up into a confused and uncertain expression. “He…” Bill shook his head, and pressed his right palm hard against the side of his forehead, squeezing his eyes closed as his chin tilted down, because it still hurt to think about--

_**We were never friends** , you stupid triangle!! **We were never friends!** Get that through your stupid head! We’re not friends, we never were, and **we never will be!** And if you’ve **ever** thought differently, then you’re the most gullible, idiotic, **foolish** individual that I’ve **ever** encountered in **any** dimension I’ve ever traveled in, in this world or any other!_

_That’s right, Bill. I **lied** to you. How does that make you **feel?**_

_And you know what else, Bill? We aren’t just ‘not friends’, Bill -- we’re **enemies**._

“That doesn’t change anything,” Bill told Stanley flatly, reopening his eyes. “He still lied to me.”

“That doesn’t change anything with _him_ , yeah,” Stanley told him quietly. “But maybe it changes something for you.”

Bill slowly looked back up at him.

“I don’t like the way you’ve been second-guessing everything about the way you think lately, kid,” Stanley told him under his breath. “And I don’t like how you’ve been writing people off so easily, either, just because you think that maybe you’re seeing things that aren’t actually there, or maybe that those things don’t matter. --They _are_ there, kid. They _do_ matter. And your thinking wasn’t _that_ far off. You weren’t that wrong about Ford, way back when. He _did_ think that you were his friend.”

“Yeah?” Bill breathed out, not quite a laugh. “When did he _stop_ thinking that, then?”

“Probably around the time he started trying to tear apart the portal thirty years ago,” Stanley told him grimly.

Bill closed his eyes and dropped the hand at his head to his lap, clenching it into a fist. “‘Probably’,” he echoed.

Bill reopened his eyes. “You mean, you’re _not sure_ what he was thinking,” Bill accused of him. “Or when.” His eyes narrowed. “Assuming that you’re right about what he was thinking about, _and lying about_ , at all.”

“I am,” Stanley told him.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Bill said, with an edge to his voice. “How do you know?”

“Kid, he’s my brother. I know him.”

“I thought _I_ knew him,” Bill said tersely. “I was inside his head every other day for almost thirty-five years. You only knew him for _seventeen_ of them, right at the start, before that. You think you know him better than me?”

“It’s _because_ I grew up with him that I can say that,” Stanley told him. “I knew him before he knew how to lie. And people don’t change that much, either, not from what they started out as.”

“Says you.”

“Yeah, _says me_ ,” Stanley told him. “The one of us who understands ‘stupid human things’. And your logic’s off, anyway, if you think that saying that ‘you know him better than me’ means that you know that he tricked you worse than he did, because you only found out later that you really didn’t know at the time that he was tricking you. All _that_ means is that you didn’t know him at all.”

“Stop,” Bill muttered.

“Yeah, I don’t think that headache of yours is doin’ you any favors, kid,” Stanley said, verbally backing away a bit from the topic as-requested, as he rubbed a hand over Bill head. “Just listen to me for a minute, okay? Him lying to you the way I think he did just _fits_ better than whatever you’re thinking right now.” And Bill was about to protest that he’d told Stanley to STOP, so why was he _continuing_ \-- but then Stanley took an entirely different and non-headache-inducing tack. “My brother _wants_ people to like him, and he's gullible as anything, trusting people completely right from the start, whether he really should or not. He starts out seein’ only the very-best in people. --And when he gets burnt doin’ that, things fall apart pretty quickly.”

Stanley rubbed a hand over Bill’s head again. “He thought you were friends, and he felt hurt when he realized what you were trying to do with the portal, and then he thought the opposite. He got mad every time he thought you weren’t listening to him, when you called him a friend when he thought you weren’t one, because he hates being ignored and being lied to. --He thought you were lying to him and messing with him, every time you told him you’re friends, for the last thirty years. So after he called off the deal he had with you, when he finally thought that maybe you were listening to him the way he wanted you to listen to him, for once… he wanted to hurt you back too, in the same way that he felt that he’d been hurt by you. So he lied to you, in the worst way he could think of. ...Get it?”

Bill listened to Stanley, and he thought about this.

And then Bill said, with much deliberation, “...So I’m _right_. He _did_ lie when I thought he did.”

“Kid?”

Bill pulled away from Stanley a bit. “He wasn’t lying when he said he was never my friend. He ‘decided’ to stop being my friend when he realized what I was trying to do with the portal.” Bill tilted his head back to look up at Stanley, and he gave Stanley a hard look, straight in his eyes. “--But if he’d _actually_ been my friend, he wouldn’t have done that. If he’d _actually_ been my friend, he would’ve wanted to _help get me out of there_.”

“Yeahhhh,” said Stanley with a grimace, looking away. “Pretty sure that Ford doesn’t really get the difference between _thinking_ he’s somebody’s friend and actually _being_ a friend to them.”

“Ha,” Bill said bitterly, dropping his chin. “Reality is an _illusion_ ,” he told Stanley. “I kept _telling_ him this. I kept _telling_ him, and he kept _not listening_ , and, what, he wonders why I never bothered to ever _try_ to teach him how magic actually works? And why?” Bill said in rising tones. “He couldn’t even wrap his head around _step one!!_ \--There isn’t just _one_ Reality, there are an infinite number of them! Your Reality is _whatever you think it is_ \-- and that’s how it _works_. --Just pick one! Because Reality isn’t _REAL!_ You make your own! You make it, and you change it to suit you, and understanding that’s step one. You make your own -- _so you’d **better** choose it **wisely**_ \-- AND HE SURE DIDN’T, NOW DID HE!!” Bill snarled out angrily.

“Kid…”

“But hey, _that’s okay_ , ignoring everything I have to say to him like it’s _nothing_ really, because I’m just his _muse_ , right?” Bill said with a nasty edge to his tone. “It’s not like the trillion-year-old demon with the _All-Seeing Eye_ who knows LOTS OF THINGS could _possibly_ know what he’s talking about, _right?_ ” Bill began to shake in place. “So he says he wants to be friends, HA. It’s all _fine and dandy_ , as long as the only person he’s lying to is himself, _RIGHT?_ \--It doesn’t matter if he lies to _me_ in the process, _right?_ Because _that_ doesn’t count, I’m just his _STUPID MUSE_ ,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. “No thoughts or wants of my own cluttering up _my_ Mindscape, no-siree! Because hey, what could _I_ possibly get out of this arrangement, huh? Other than the _rare_ ‘PRIVILEGE’ of being _Stanford Pines’ ‘MUSE’_. Why else would _I_ want to spend my time inspiring one great mind in every generation, huh? What else could _I_ possibly want to get out of it, right? --The arrogant, self-centered, know-it-all _jerk_ ,” Bill spat out, leaning into Stanley’s chest, and that was when Bill finally realized that he was shaking again. “Stupid human-ish body,” he muttered angrily under his breath, wrapping his arms around his chest.

He felt Stanley start to stroke a hand through his hair, and it just made him feel even more tired than before.

“Why, kid?” he heard Stanley say, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d think the man sounded _worried_.

“‘Why’ _what?_ ” Bill muttered out, because what was he, a mind reader? If Stanley wanted _that_ , he should ease up on the restrictions on his powers pronto, thanks!

“Why did you try and work with Ford, then?” Stanley said in hushed tones. “You… _hate_ him,” Stanley said slowly, like it was a dawning realization for him. “You hate _all_ of them, don’t you.”

“YES,” Bill told him flatly.

“Then. _why_ ,” he heard Stanley say in hard-sounding tones.

Bill let out a soft, derisive laugh. “Who _else_ did I have to work with?” he told Stanley under his breath, looking away. “It had to be one of _YOU_. My ‘Zodiac Ten’,” he told Stanley mockingly. “Gotta love prophecies, right? Glasses is a glass cannon,” he told Stanley. “Glass is half-empty, glasses are fragile, and Glasses is scared of demons. --No help there. And Shooting Star? _She_ gets distracted by _shiny objects_ and _glitter_ ,” Bill told him in descending tones. “I couldn’t hold her attention long enough to get anywhere, no matter how hard I tried, anytime I tried, in any dimension I tried it in, and Question Mark wasn’t much better. --Pine Tree? Once he gets old enough to actually be _useful_ , he’s **worse than Stanford** EVERY TIME,” he gritted out. “Gideon’s too self-centered and too fair-weather to see it through, and even if I manage to get my hands on one that feels like playing nice, he is _not_ willing to _share_ things, at all, _ever_ , dimensions _included_. Stitched Heart is useless for that sort of thing; so are Llama and Red,” Bill fumed.

“...You left somebody out there,” Stanley said slowly.

Bill got quiet.

“Kid…”

“-- _You really want to know?_ ” Bill said abruptly, and he was shaking again. “You do. Ha. You _do._ \--I tried that,” Bill told him, not looking at him. “I tried that ONCE. _**\--Never again.**_ ” And Bill squeezed his eyes shut, and shoved down hard on vague images of a cape lined with fur, amused dark eyes and a thin-lipped smile…

“Kid--”

“--I took every memory of it and I put it behind a door. Locked it. Wrapped it up in chains. Wrote on it in letters a mile-and-a-half high,” Bill said shakily, with a weak barely-there smile, “‘Stanley Pines -- DO NOT OPEN. Doesn’t work. Uptraded to another demon. Handed off to others. Never try using him again. _Never teach him magic._ ’”

He felt more things begin to leak out the sides and around the edges, light chains and a collar that fit _just right_ and pats on the head and thin smiles and _liking it_ , and wanting to be useful to his--, and _WANTING_ \--

...and Bill shuddered and shoved it all away again, down and in, packed it in and firmed it up and filled in all the little broken cracks and bleeding spaces all over again, until he couldn’t remember anything of it again anymore.

Buried it all, three-six-eight-ten- _nine_ feet under and put a tombstone of a warning over it.

And then he took in a breath.

Because pain was hilarious. But there were worse things.

“I don’t want to think about it,” he told Stanley, with as much calm as he could muster. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to remember it again. Don’t ask me about it. _Please,_ ” he ended quietly.

He heard Stanley swallow, hard.

“Kid,” he heard Stanley say roughly. “This… this _anchor-thing_...”

“--It’s not the same,” Bill was quick to assure him, curling up against the side of Stanley’s chest again, ducking his head under Stanley’s chin. Like he fit there, just perfectly. He _fit_. “It’s not the same at all! You’re not the same; it’s fine,” he told Stanley in a rush, almost babbling. Things started to bubble up out of the ground he’d buried it all under, and he stomped it all down, hard-packed the memories away again firmly into the dirt just as quickly as they tried to ooze out and up and sideways to make a quagmire of mental quicksand, faster and faster. “--You’re not the same, you’re different; it’s fine; I’ll never teach you magic; it’s fine, it’s fine,” he crooned out softly to Stanley, turning his head to bury his face in Stanley’s chest as he stroked his fingers gently across Stanley’s fabric-covered chest. “It’s fine.”

He felt things begin settle out again -- _finally_ \-- only after he dumped the equivalent of psychic concrete over the whole broad expanse of his mind, paving absolutely _everything_ under. ‘ _That ought to hold it awhile._ ’

And it would. Because if he didn’t think about it, it was exactly like it wasn’t there. --So why not just ignore it?

...Ignore it? Ignore _what?_ Right? --HAHAHAHAHA!

‘ _It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine._ ’

“Right,” Stanley said a little shakily. “Right.” Bill felt him capture his fingers in one of his hands, to hold against his chest, then take in a breath. “Totally different, sure. Good. Glad to hear it. --Nice to be unique!” Stanley ended, with something of a con-man’s bravado in his voice.

“Yes,” Bill said simply. “You are.” He turned his head so that his left temple was right up against Stanley’s chest again, and leaned into him a bit more. Because Stanley was warm.

He felt Stanley release his fingers, to run a hand over his head again. He felt Stanley’s breathing, which had gotten a little more rapid, take a little longer, and a little longer, and a little longer still.

“Heh,” he heard Stanley say a little weakly. “Says you.”

“I do!” Bill agreed, giving Stanley an easy, small smile as he noticed that Stanley’s being-warm was _finally_ starting to make _him_ feel a bit warm-ish too -- it was about time! -- and then realized that _that_ was beginning to make his stupid human-ish body feel sleepy again.

...Bill was fine with this.

Stanley snorted. “What, do I get some sorta special _recognition_ for this ‘unique’ achievement?” Stanley asked him in a wandering tone that was almost sarcastic.

“Sure,” he told Stanley, eyes closed, as he thumped his head against Stanley’s chest, because why not? He could do that easily enough. “--Congratulations! _You’re_ the only Stanley Pines I know of who’s ever managed to get a portal working, let alone _tried_. And you did it all on your own. --Talk about ‘one of a kind’,” Bill murmured out with a smile, “Unique,” as he thought a little more about it, because maybe Stanley really _did_ deserve recognition for the accomplishment. Because… “I didn’t even realize you were doing it, until you were almost done. _Unique_.” Bill turned the word over again on his tongue, trying out the taste of it.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Hmmm, let’s see, what else makes you stand out?” Bill thought to himself, out loud. Because now that he was thinking about it…

“...Oh, yeah,” Bill said, after a bit of deliberation, and a small yawn. “You’re alive.”

He felt Stanley still next to him.

“Not many Stanleys get that,” Bill elaborated, because he probably hadn’t been all that clear about it before, if _that_ was Stanley’s reaction to it.

“...To live.”

“Yes.” Bill stretched in place a little, getting comfortable. He was very tired. “Most of you die pretty young.” He slitted his eyes open slightly. “Oh, but don’t worry,” he told Stanley, tilting his head up at him, because maybe he cared about his other selves? Some dimensional travelers did. “On the whole, you Stanleys usually outlive your Stanfords by at least a _little_ bit. Maybe a couple days, maybe a couple of years. --Well, except when they’re the ones to kill you, of course,” he told Stanley, closing his eyes again, basking in the combination of Stanley’s warmth and the summer sunlight. “But then I stop helping them and they usually die pretty quickly after that,” he added matter-of-factly, with a smile. “Instant karma!”

“You… stop helping them… when they’re the ones to _kill me?_ ” he heard Stanley say to him faintly, with a great deal of strain in his voice.

“Mm. Well, _sure_ ,” he told Stanley in easy tones. “If a Stanford can’t even get along with his own sibling... well, then, how could I ever expect them to get along with anyone _else?_ Let alone help _me_. --Waste of my time, if you ask me,” he told Stanley with a relaxed smile.

“...Right. Waste of time,” Stanley echoed hollowly.

“Mm-hm,” Bill hummed in agreement. On the whole, he really had nothing against Stanleys -- they were just… _problematic_ at times. “--Oh, it’s actually kind of funny, though,” he told Stanley -- as it occurred to him that maybe Stanley would be interested to know -- since he’d sure seemed interested in it all _so_ far, haha! -- “Exactly how quickly those Stanfords always die once I stop helping them. --Ninety-five percent of them within the first twenty-four hours, and another ninety-nine percent of those-remaining in the next thirty-six hours after _that_. If they manage to make it out past the week, the ones who made it that far almost always die within the _next_ week after _that_ ; flip a coin every other hour of the hundred-sixty-eight, see if they bite the dust within those two, yeah? If they get past _that_ little speed bump, though, and actually _try_ to steer clear of trouble, their chances of survival get a **lot** higher if they make it through to the end of that first month -- but they _hardly ever do_ , HAHA!” he ended with a big grin.

Stanley was quiet for several long seconds.

“...I guess life on the other side of the portal _is_ pretty dangerous,” Stanley said carefully, with a strong note of strain in his tone.

“Well, yeah,” Bill told him, his grin dropping back into more of a relaxed smile, as he curled up against Stanley’s chest a bit more. “Especially when you don’t know what you’re doing. --What’s your point?” he asked.

He felt Stanley shift in place. “Well, if it’s killed _that_ many… Stanfords…”

“Haha, what?” Bill said sleepily, his eyes fluttering open for a moment, to look up at him, before closing again. “Oh. Ha. You thought I meant-- No,” he told Stanley, burrowing his head back under Stanley’s chin. Silly Stanley, assuming silly things. “It’s the ones who make it out _past_ the month who sometimes manage to finish building or... ‘fixing’... the portal,” he told Stanley. “Most of them die in their _own_ dimensions, on Earth, within their first month of me not-helping them anymore, usually in Gravity Falls.” Bill yawned. “Some of the rest of them to make it past the month kill themselves later with a malfunctioning portal -- and boy howdy, is _that_ messy, HAHA!” Bill told Stanley with a short laugh. “--The only Stanford _I_ know of who made it through their portal _on accident_ ,” Bill mentally rolled his eyes, “Was _your_ sibling. The dumb idiot.”

“...Ford isn’t dumb,” Stanley told him with an odd, quiet intensity.

“Yes, _he is_ ,” Bill told him tersely in reply. Because he _was_. The idiot had been so sleep-deprived that he’d forgotten how gravity and physics worked, among other things. Truly, an idiot-Stanford among idiot-Stanfords. That said... “Every _other_ Stanford who manages to survive getting a portal up and working just ends up bypassing my dimension entirely, scheduling their own expeditions to wherever they want on their own, and finding ways to keep any rifts from forming -- not _wandering between dimensions_ , portal-hopping for years, without knowing where they are at any given moment, or where they’ll end up going.”

“...Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Bill.

Stanley said not a word in response to this, so Bill sat where he was in Stanley’s arms for awhile, just breathing slowly and basking in the glorious heat emanating from him. And then...

“I’m tired,” Bill informed Stanley. “You’re warm, and listening to your heartbeat is making me sleepy. That’s a stupid human thing, right?” He yawned again, expansively. “I’m pretty sure that’s one of those stupid human things.”

“Uh, yeah kid. That’s a stupid human thing, all right.”

Bill was really too tired at that point to get angry over his stupid human-ish body for any new unexpected stupidity of it. “So can I sleep here now?” he asked, instead. “You’ll keep that Ford away from me?”

“Yeah, kid. You can sleep here. I’ll keep him away from you. It’s okay.”

“Mm.”

And with that promise given to him by his Stanley, in the span of a few seconds, Bill finally let his stupid human-ish body finish relaxing completely and he fell back to sleep.

\---


End file.
